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A review by ridgewaygirl
Ordinary Girls by Jaquira Díaz
4.0
This is a memoir by journalist Jaquira Diáz, about her childhood in Puerto Rico, through her school years in Miami and into her adulthood as she negotiates her way as the daughter of estranged parents, bouncing back and forth between her absent father and her mentally ill and drug addicted mother. Despite her bleak situation, this is very much not a misery memoir. Diáz is not interested in garnering sympathy and she leans hard into how members of her family supported her when they could and especially on the friendships she formed as a girl growing up in a tough Miami neighborhood where gunshots were heard regularly and where she is haunted by the body of a young boy who remains nameless for far too long.
Diáz is first and foremost a journalist. Her focus is on understanding other people. She weaves into her own story, that of Lazaro Cardona and his mother Ana. He is found dead under a hedge in Diáz's neighborhood when she is a child. It took time for his identity to be found, and his mother and her girlfriend are convicted of his murder. This murder is also a story Diáz revisits as a journalist, attending his mother's appeals.
What I found most interesting is how Diáz manages to move from being a school drop-out who was regularly arrested at a shockingly young age, to building a stable life for herself, and how she chooses to love her family, even her mother.
Diáz is first and foremost a journalist. Her focus is on understanding other people. She weaves into her own story, that of Lazaro Cardona and his mother Ana. He is found dead under a hedge in Diáz's neighborhood when she is a child. It took time for his identity to be found, and his mother and her girlfriend are convicted of his murder. This murder is also a story Diáz revisits as a journalist, attending his mother's appeals.
What I found most interesting is how Diáz manages to move from being a school drop-out who was regularly arrested at a shockingly young age, to building a stable life for herself, and how she chooses to love her family, even her mother.